by Paul Auster
In spite of her self-deprecating manner, Walker can’t help admiring the girl’s courage for tackling such a formidable poem, a poem he himself would now like to read, and consequently he asks her if any translations exist in English. She doesn’t know, she says, but she would be happy to find out for him. Walker thanks her and then adds (out of simple curiosity, with no ulterior motive) that he would like to read her version of the opening lines in French. But Cécile demurs. It couldn’t possibly interest you, she says. It’s pure rubbish. At which point Hélène pats her daughter’s hand and tells her not to be so hard on herself. Born then pipes in and addresses Cécile as well: Adam is a translator, too, you know. A poet first, but also a translator of poems. From Provençal, no less. He once gave me a work by my would-be namesake, Bertran de Born. An impressive fellow, old Bertran. He tended to lose his head at times, but a good poet, and Adam did an excellent translation.
Oh? Cécile says, looking at Walker. I wasn’t aware of that.
I don’t know about excellent, he says, but I have done a little translating.
Well, she replies, in that case . . .
And just like that, with no forewarning, with no devious maneuvers on his part, Walker finds himself arranging to get together with Cécile tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock to have a look at her manuscript. A small victory, perhaps, but quite suddenly he has accomplished everything he set out to do this evening. There will be further contact with the Juins, and Born will be nowhere in sight.
The following morning, he is sitting at his wobbly desk with a pen in his hand, looking over a recent poem and becoming more and more disenchanted with it, wondering if he should forge on with his efforts, put the manuscript aside for later reflection, or simply chuck it into the wastebasket. He lifts his head for a peek out the windows: gray and overcast, a mountain of clouds bulking up to the west, yet another shift in the ever-shifting Paris sky. He finds the gloom indoors rather pleasant—a soothing gloom, as it were, a companionable gloom, a gloom one could converse with for hours. He puts down his pen, scratches his head, exhales. Unbidden, a forgotten verse from Ecclesiastes comes roaring into his consciousness. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly . . . As he jots down the words in the right-hand margin of his poem, he wonders if this isn’t the truest thing he has written about himself in months. The words might not be his own, but he feels that they belong to him.
Ten-thirty, eleven o’clock. The yellowish glow of the electric bulb radiating from the wine-bottle lamp on the desk. The dripping faucet, the peeling wallpaper, the scratching of his pen. He hears the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Someone is approaching, slowly mounting the circular staircase toward his floor, the top floor, and at first he assumes it is Maurice, the semi-inebriated hotel manager, coming to deliver a telegram or the morning mail, affable Maurice Petillon, man of a thousand stories about nothing at all, but no, it can’t be Maurice, for now Walker detects the clicking sound of high heels, and therefore it must be a woman, and if it’s a woman, who else can it be but Margot? Walker is glad, inordinately glad, positively stupid with happiness at the prospect of seeing her again. He jumps out of his chair and rushes to open the door before she has time to knock.
She is holding a small, wax-coated patisserie bag filled with freshly baked croissants. Under normal circumstances, a person who shows up bearing gifts is a person in a happy frame of mind, but Margot looks peeved and out of sorts today, and she barely manages a smile as she plants a frosty, perfunctory kiss on Walker’s mouth. When Walker puts his arms around her, she wriggles out of his grasp and strides into the room, tossing the bag onto the desk and then sitting down on the unmade bed. Walker closes the door behind him, advances as far as the desk, and stops.
What’s wrong? he says.
There’s nothing wrong with me, Margot replies. I want to know what’s wrong with you.
With me? Why should anything be wrong with me? What are you talking about?
Last night, I happened to be walking with a friend down the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was about eight-thirty or nine o’clock. We passed that restaurant, you know the one I’m talking about, the old brasserie, Vagenende, and for no particular reason, giant idiot that I am, or maybe because I used to go there with my parents when I was a little girl, I looked through the window. And who do you think I saw?
Ah, Walker says, feeling as if he has just been slapped across the face. You don’t have to tell me. I already know the answer.
What are you up to, Adam? What kind of warped game are you involved in now?
Walker lowers himself onto the chair behind the desk. There is no air left in his lungs; his head is about to detach itself from his body. He looks away from Margot, whose eyes never leave him, and begins fiddling with the bag of croissants.
Well? she says. Aren’t you going to talk?
I want to, he says at last. I want to tell you everything.
Then why don’t you?
Because I don’t know if I can trust you. You can’t breathe a word about this to anyone, do you understand? You have to promise me that.
Who do you think I am?
I don’t know. Someone who disappointed me. Someone I like very much. Someone I want to be friends with.
But you don’t think I can keep a secret.
Can you?
No one ever asked me before. How can I know unless I try?
Well, at least that’s honest.
You decide. I’m not going to force you to talk when you don’t want to talk. But if you don’t talk, Adam, I’m going to stand up and leave this room, and you’ll never see me again.
That’s blackmail.
No it’s not. It’s the simple truth, that’s all.
Walker lets out a prolonged sigh of defeat, then stands up from the chair and begins pacing back and forth in front of Margot, who watches him in silence from the bed. Ten minutes go by, and in those minutes he tells her the story of the past several days: the accidental meeting with Born, which he now suspects was not an accident, Born’s spurious denials about the murder of Cedric Williams, the invitation to meet Hélène and Cécile, the business card he almost tore up, hatching the plan to block Born’s marriage to Hélène, the contrite telephone call to set the plan in motion, the dinner at Vagenende, his upcoming date with Cécile at four o’clock this afternoon. When Margot has heard him out, she pats the bed with her left hand and asks Walker to sit down beside her. Walker sits, and the moment his body touches the mattress, Margot grabs hold of his two shoulders with her two hands, turns him toward her, brings her face to within inches of his, and says in a low voice filled with determination: Give it up, Adam. You don’t have a chance. He’ll slice you into little pieces.
It’s too late, Walker says. I’ve already started now, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve seen it through to the end.
You talk about trust. What makes you think you can trust Hélène Juin? You’ve only just met her.
I know. It’s going to take a while before I’m sure. But my first impression of her is a good one. She strikes me as a solid, honest person, and I don’t think she really cares that much about Born. She’s grateful to him, he’s been kind to her, but she’s not in love with him.
The minute you tell her about what happened in New York, she’ll turn around and go straight to Rudolf. I promise you.
Maybe. But even if she does, what can happen to me?
All kinds of things.
Born might try to punch me in the face, but he’s not going to come after me with his knife.
I’m not talking about the knife. Rudolf has connections, a hundred powerful connections, and before you start to mess with him, you should know who you’re dealing with. He’s not just anyone.
Connections?
With the police, with the military, with the government. I can’t prove anything, but I’ve always felt he’s something more than just a university professor.
Such as?
I don’t know. Sec
ret intelligence, espionage, dirty work of some kind or another.
And why on earth do you suspect that?
Telephone calls in the middle of the night . . . mysterious, unexplained absences . . . the people he knows. Cabinet ministers, army generals. How many young professors go out to dinner with top government officials? Rudolf is on the inside, and that makes him a dangerous person for you to know. Especially here in Paris.
It sounds rather flimsy to me.
Do you remember the dinner at our apartment in New York last spring?
Vividly. How could I forget it?
He was on the phone when I let you into the apartment. Then he came out—furious, breathing fire, hysterical. How many years have I given them? What did he mean by that? Principles! Battles! The ship is going down! There was a problem in Paris, and I can tell you now that it had nothing to do with academic business or his father’s estate. It was connected to the government, to his secret life in whatever agency he works for. That’s why he got so worked up when you started talking about the CIA. Don’t you remember? He told you all those things about your family, and you were shocked, you couldn’t believe how much information he’d managed to dig up about you. You said he must be an agent of some kind. You were right, Adam. You sniffed out something about him, and he started laughing at you, he tried to turn it into a joke. That’s when I knew I was right.
Maybe. But it’s still just a guess.
Then why wouldn’t he tell me what the problem was? He didn’t even bother to make up an excuse. It doesn’t concern you, he said, don’t ask so many questions. So off he flies to Paris, and when he comes back, he’s engaged to Hélène Juin and I’m thrown out the door.
They go on talking for another fifteen or twenty minutes, and the more vehement Margot becomes about her suspicions concerning undercover operations, government conspiracies, and the psychological pressures of leading a double life, the less Walker seems to care. Margot is puzzled by his indifference. She calls it curious, unhealthy, irrational, but Walker explains that Born’s activities are of no interest to him. The only thing that counts is the murder of Cedric Williams, and even if Born turned out to be the head of the entire French intelligence system, it wouldn’t matter to him. There is just one moment when his attention seems fully engaged, and that follows a tossed-off comment from Margot about Born’s past—something to do with spending his childhood in a large house outside Paris, which was where she first met him when she was three years old. What about Guatemala? Walker asks, remembering that Born said to him that he had grown up in Guatemala.
He was pulling your leg, Margot replies. Rudolf has never been anywhere near the place.
I thought as much. But why Guatemala?
Why not Guatemala? He enjoys making up stories about himself. Fooling people, telling little lies—they’re grand entertainment for Rudolf.
Although little of concrete value emerges from this conversation (too many assumptions, not enough facts), it nevertheless seems to mark a turning point in his relations with Margot. She is worried about him, worried for him, and the anxiety and concern he sees in her eyes is both comforting (the issue of trust is no longer in doubt) and somewhat troubling. She is drawing closer to him, her affection has become more manifest, more sincere, and yet there is something maternal about that anxiety, a sense of wisdom frowning down on the errors of youth, and for the first time in the months he has known her, he can feel the difference in their ages, the gap of ten years that stands between them. He hopes this will not become a problem. He needs Margot now. She is his only ally in Paris, and being with her is the only medicine that can prevent him from brooding about Gwyn, from longing for Gwyn. No, he is not unhappy that she spotted him in the restaurant last night with Born and the Juins. Nor is he unhappy that he has just bared his soul to her. Her reaction has proved that he means something to her, that he represents more than just another body to climb into bed with, but he knows that he mustn’t abuse her friendship, for Margot is not entirely there, and she has only just so much of herself to give. Ask for too much, and she is liable to resent it, perhaps even abscond.
Leaving the untouched croissants on the desk, they go out into the dank, sunless weather to look for a place to eat. Margot holds his hand as they walk along in silence, and ten minutes later they are sitting across from each other at a corner table in the Restaurant des Beaux-Arts. Margot buys him a copious three-course lunch (refusing to let him pay, insisting that he order dessert and a second cup of coffee), and then they move on to the rue de l’Université. The Jouffroy apartment is on the fifth floor of a six-story building, and as they squeeze into the cramped birdcage of an elevator to begin their ascent, Walker puts his arms around Margot and covers her face with a barrage of short, intense kisses. Margot bursts out laughing, and she is still laughing as she extracts a key from her purse and unlocks the door of the apartment. It turns out to be a sumptuous place, far more lavish than anything Walker could have imagined, an immense palace of comfort expressing wealth on a scale he has not encountered before. Margot once told him that her father worked in banking, but she neglected to add that he was the president of the bank, and now that she is giving Walker a brief tour of the rooms, with their thick Persian rugs and gilt-edged mirrors, with their crystal chandeliers and antique furnishings, he feels he is gaining new insight into the disaffected, elusive Margot. She is a person at odds with the environment she was born into, at odds with it but not in outright rebellion (for here she is, temporarily back with her parents as she searches for a place of her own), yet what a disappointment it must be to them that she is still unmarried at thirty, nor can her halfhearted attempts to become a painter sit terribly well in this dominion of bourgeois respectability. Ambiguous Margot, with her love of cooking and her love of sex, still struggling to find a place for herself, still not entirely free.
Or so Walker muses as he follows her into the kitchen, but a minute later he learns that the portrait is somewhat more complex than the one he has been fashioning in his mind. Margot does not live in the apartment with her parents. She has a room upstairs, a tiny maid’s room that her grandmother bought for her as a twenty-first-birthday present, and the only reason she entered the apartment this afternoon was to look for a pack of cigarettes (which she now finds in a drawer next to the sink). The tour was a little bonus, she adds, so Walker would have an idea of how and where she grew up. When he asks her why she prefers camping out in a minute chambre de bonne to sleeping in comfort down here, Margot smiles and says: Figure it out for yourself.
It is a spartan room, less than a third the size of his room at the hotel. Space for a small desk and chair, a small sink, and a small bed with storage drawers under the mattress. Pristine in its cleanliness, no adornments anywhere—as if they have stepped into the cell of a novitiate nun. Just one book in sight, lying on the floor beside the bed: a collection of poems by Paul Éluard, Capitale de la douleur. A few sketchbooks piled up on the desk along with a drinking glass filled with pencils and pens; some canvases on the floor, leaning against the wall with their backs facing out. Walker would love to turn them around, would love to open the sketchbooks, but Margot doesn’t offer to show them to him, and he doesn’t dare touch anything without her permission. He is awed by the simplicity of the room, awed by this unearthly glimpse into Margot’s inner world. How many people has she allowed to come in here? he wonders.
He would like to think he is the first.
They spend two hours together in Margot’s narrow bed, and when Walker finally leaves, he is running late for his appointment with Cécile Juin. It is entirely his fault, but the truth is that he forgot all about the meeting. From the moment he started kissing Margot, the four o’clock rendezvous vanished from his mind, and if not for Margot herself, who glanced over at the alarm clock and said to him: Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere in fifteen minutes?, he would still be lying next to her—rather than bounding from the bed, jumping into his clothes, and scrambling to get out o
f there.
He is mystified by this gesture of help. Just hours earlier, she was adamantly opposed to his plan, and now she seems to be acting as his accomplice. Has she rethought her position, he asks himself, or is she subtly mocking him in some way, testing him to find out if he is actually stupid enough to walk into the trap she feels he has set for himself? He suspects the latter interpretation is the correct one, but even so, he thanks her for reminding him of the date, and then, just as he is about to open the door and leave the tiny room, he rashly tells Margot that he loves her.
No you don’t, she says, shaking her head and smiling. But I’m glad you think you do. You’re a crazy boy, Adam, and every time I see you, you’re crazier than you were the last time. Before long, you’ll be just as crazy as I am.
He walks into La Palette at twenty-five past four, almost half an hour late. He would not be surprised if Cécile has already left, storming out in a huff and vowing to rain down a thousand curses on him if he should ever cross her path again. But no, she is still there, sitting calmly at a table in the back room, reading a book, a half-finished bottle of Orangina in front of her, wearing glasses this time, and a fetching little dark blue hat that resembles a beret. Embarrassed, out of breath from running, his clothes disheveled, his body no doubt reeking of sex, and with the word crazy still resounding in his head, Walker approaches the table, already stammering a multitude of apologies as Cécile glances up at him and smiles—a wholly undeserved smile of forgiveness.
